Fuel Freedom Staff

Can David S. Cohen cut off ISIS’ oil revenues?

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Islamic State, or ISIS, is the world’s most well-financed terrorist network, owing to at least $1 million a day in illicit oil revenues. But David S. Cohen, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the U.S. Treasury Department, expects to make a dent in ISIS’ finances “long before 36 months,” referring to the timeline President Obama laid out last month for the U.S.-led military campaign designed to “degrade and destroy” the group.

Read more in The New York Times.

Fuel Freedom Staff

NYT editorial: Keep up search for energy alternatives

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The New York Times editorial board has a reasonable take on the falling price of oil, enumerating several winners and losers.

Low prices, obviously, are good for consumers. But they’re bad for countries that don’t have diverse economies, and for people promoting alternative forms of transportation fuel.

“It’s bad for the environment because cheaper oil means fewer incentives to develop alternative and less carbon-intensive sources of energy,” the editorial states.

“… it is imperative that the United States and all other beneficiaries resist the temptation to use what could be a fleeting drop in prices to slow the search for alternative sources of energy. The planet, alas, does not have the resilience of oil prices.”

Fuel Freedom Staff

The Price of Hybrid and Electric Cars Is Plummeting. Here’s Why

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USA Today just reported that Ford is cutting the sticker price of the fully battery-powered plug-in Focus Electric by a flat $6,000. That’s on top of a $4,000 price reduction on the same vehicle a year ago. The new sticker price is $29,995 including shipping—but not including federal tax credits of up to $7,500 and state incentives that might effectively knock another $2,500 off the amount buyers pay.

Read more in TIME.

Fuel Freedom Staff

Report: Electric car buyers hate the dealer experience

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Researchers at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis have made a startling discovery: Consumers in the market for an electric vehicle hate dealing with the traditional car dealers that sell EVs.

Green Car Congress has a story on the UC Davis study, which found that purchasers of plug-in electrics were less satisfied with their experience with the sales departments at car dealerships than purchasers of traditional gas-powered vehicles.

And the feeling is mutual, it seems: Sales people at dealers that sell EVs alongside traditional cars often don’t like to take the extra time (for time is money) to explain the basics of how EVs work. As Green Car Reports notes, “Customers tended to be more discriminating, they said, which demanded more time and effort by the staff to answer questions and arrange test drives.”

The exception to the rule of customer dissatisfaction is Tesla, which doesn’t even use dealers: Buyers pick out the model they want in the showroom, then order online.

Fuel Freedom Staff

Future for non-food ethanol in the U.S. is murky

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a story about how three large plants that produce cellulosic ethanol — fuel made from inedible parts of corn like the cob — could be the last for a while.

“Wavering U.S. policy on renewable fuels and the North American oil boom cast a shadow over the commercial triumph,” the story says. “The next big cellulosic ethanol plants are planned or being built in Brazil, not the United States. Although the U.S. government has spent more than $1 billion to develop cellulosic technology, industry executives recently wrote to President Barack Obama that other countries, including China, could “reap the economic and environmental rewards of technologies pioneered in America.”

Fuel Freedom Staff

How would lifting oil-export ban affect gas prices? GAO weighs in

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The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a new report saying that lifting the nation’s nearly 40-year-old ban on oil exports would reduce gas prices for Americans.

The ban was put in place after the oil shortages of the 1970s. But critics of the ban say the ramped-up production in the U.S. of light sweet crude could lead to a glut, keeping prices artificially low.

As The Wall Street Journal notes, “export advocates note that most of the country’s gasoline prices are derived from global markets and sending out U.S. crude would ultimately lower prices at home.”

The nonpartisan GAO stated that repealing the ban on exports would “likely increase domestic crude oil prices but decrease consumer fuel prices.”

The public might not be convinced. A Reuters-Ipsos poll earlier this month found that Americans are split about 50-50 on whether to repeal the ban. The chief concern is that prices would rise, not fall, if drillers were allowed to export crude to higher-priced foreign markets.

U.S. refiners, which purchase domestic oil at a cheaper cost, have opposed lifting the ban.

The GAO added that lifting the export ban “could pose risks to groundwater quality, increase greenhouse gas emissions and increase the risk of spills from transportation.”

Fuel Freedom Staff

Post your local E85 price, maybe win a year’s supply

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The Renewable Fuels Association is having a contest to promote E85 ethanol blends around the country.

It’s simple: Post a photo of an E85 pump that shows the price. A random winner will be chosen, and that person will win a year’s supply of the fuel.

As RFA notes, E85 is sold at more than 3,440 stations nationwide.

You can find out where at either the government’s Alternative Fuels Data Center or E85Prices.com.

 

Fuel Freedom Staff

Bloomberg has cool graphic showing shale-oil break-even points

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With the global plunge in oil prices comes concern that many U.S. companies that drill in tight-oil shale formations might be hurt, since it’s more expensive to extract that oil and their profit margins are smaller.

But Bloomberg has a helpful chart showing that “most regions continue to be profitable below $80, including the Bakken and Eagle Ford formations, two of the most important sources. Much of the Eagle Ford play would still be profitable with $50 oil.”

Fuel Freedom Staff

Oil futures up for second straight day

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Has the precipitous slide in oil prices ended? For a couple days, at least. As The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, oil futures gained for a second straight day.

Here’s a (possibly prescient) quote from an analyst about where prices are going:

“I think we have seen a peak in downside momentum,” Citigroup Inc. analyst Tim Evans said. “We have probably seen a peak in the fear of demand weakness and the fear that OPEC may just stand back and let it drop. At this point I think the feel of panic over that possibility has probably eased.”